Roll formed aluminum seamless eavestrough systems are well known and commonly used for commercial and domestic building applications. The seamless aluminum eavestrough can be produced in any desired length to fit a particular application. This continuous length of eavestrough will not leak intermediate its length and any leaks in the system are at corner connectors and downspout connectors.
Extruded plastic eavestrough can also be manufactured in long lengths, however, for shipping to retail outlets, storage at retail outlets as well as transport by the end consumer, the eavestroughs are normally sold in short lengths of ten to twelve feet. For many applications, a joiner connector will be required to join two lengths of eavestroughs for longer runs. Any eavestrough connector has the potential to leak and also produces a visual interruption in the length of the eavstrough. One solution for plastic eavestroughs is to merely sell longer lengths and thereby reduce the number of connectors, however, this solution is often not practical. Attempts have been made to thermally form on a job site a flat plastic strip material into a continuous length of plastic eavestrough much in the manner of roll formed aluminum eavestrough. These attempts have not been successful.
Plastic eavestrough has excellent durability, resiliency, and high quality surface finish and would be an alternative to aluminum eavestrough if longer continuous lengths were available. For new construction, vinyl or plastic siding is often used and these installers could easily install plastic eavestrough if the joiner problem could be resolved. In some circumstances, plastic eavestrough would be preferred.
The present invention provides an apparatus as well as a method for thermally joining or welding two lengths of eavestrough to form a continuous length without a separate connector. The opposed ends of the eavestrough are heated to soften the plastic material and the heated ends are brought together under pressure to join the two sections. The softened plastic at the ends of the respective eavestrough sections adhere or co-mingle resulting in a strong connection. This method can be used to join eavestroughs in a straight end to end manner to form a continuous length of eavestrough or the method can be used to join eavestrough sections at a particular desired angle. This provides a further advantage of the invention in that plastic eavestroughs can be thermally joined at different angles one to the other thereby further reducing the probability of leakage at a corner.
The present invention is also directed to an apparatus which is easily used on a construction site to thermal join or weld eavestrough sections.